When Lucy wins a place at university, she thinks London will unlock her future. It is a city alive with pop up bars, cool girls and neon lights illuminating the Thames at night. At least this is what Lucy expects, having grown up seemingly a world away in working-class Sunderland, amid legendary family stories of Irish immigrants and boarding houses, now defunct ice rinks and an engagement ring at a fish market.
Yet Lucy's transition to a new life is more overwhelming than she ever expected. As she works long shifts to make ends meet and navigates chaotic parties from East London warehouses to South Kensington mansions, she still feels like an outsider among her fellow students. When things come to a head at her graduation, Lucy takes off for Ireland, seeking solace in her late grandfather's cottage and the wild landscape that surrounds it, wondering if she can piece together who she really is.
Lyrical and boundary-breaking, Saltwater explores the complexities of mother-daughter relationships, the challenges of shifting class identity and the way that the strongest feelings of love can be the hardest to define.
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[My first dead body was my grandfather's]***
(@SceptreBooks, 2 April 2020, first published 16 May 2019, 304 pages, paperback, copy from @AmazonUK #AmazonVine)
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I really loved this book. I finished it as soon as I woke up this morning because I couldn't wait to reach the end of Lucy's journey. Saltwater uses an unusual structure, split into hundreds of small vignettes, between one paragraph and three pages long. This worked well and it didn't take long to settle into the rhythm of the book. This is a unique take on a non-linear narrative. The book moves between different periods of time. It's never clear exactly where you are but the writing and characterisation is so well done this hardly mattered. Lucy's experiences struggling to find a place for herself in the buzz of London felt so real to me. Saltwater touches on coming of age, becoming a young adult, love, loss and relationships. I was blown away.
